Gastroenterology

The Department of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy Center of Tongji Hospital was founded in the 1950s by Professor Guo Jinyuan, a deceased pioneer of gastroenterology in China and a renowned hepatology expert. Our department has now developed into a specialty integrating medical care, teaching, scientific research, and training, featuring liver diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, Helicobacter pylori research, and endoscopic diagnosis and treatment, and having an important influence nationwide. The Department of Gastroenterology has a highly qualified medical and technical team, with more than 200 staff members, including 1 standing committee member of the Gastroenterology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, 1 committee member of the Digestive Endoscopy Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, 1 chairperson of the Digestive Endoscopy Branch of the Hubei Medical Association, 1 Young Changjiang Scholar of the Ministry of Education, and 1 recipient of the Excellent Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China; more than 20 experts hold positions in the gastroenterology and digestive endoscopy branches of national, provincial, and municipal medical associations and on various academic journals. The Department of Gastroenterology was the first in the province to establish an intensive care ward; it also has a liver disease ward, a hepatobiliary and pancreatic disease ward, a gastrointestinal disease ward, a day ward, inpatient and outpatient digestive endoscopy centers, a gastrointestinal motility examination room, a PCR laboratory, and other units; the Optics Valley Campus and the Sino-French New City Campus each have 1 digestive disease ward and 1 digestive endoscopy center. Our department has established a comprehensive three-level physician ward-round system and a consultation and discussion system for difficult cases, with disease-specific treatment and more refined admission and treatment of patients, reflecting the characteristics of the specialty; it is also equipped with various monitoring and resuscitation devices to ensure high-quality medical services, and the equipment and facilities of the intensive care ward are advanced and comprehensive. The Digestive Endoscopy Center is fully staffed and has excellent software and hardware facilities, making it a leading endoscopy center in Central and South China and reaching an advanced level domestically. With innovation in minimally invasive interventional techniques for the digestive tract as its core driving force, the center has closely followed the National Key Clinical Specialty Program and constructed a matrix of minimally invasive interventional techniques in digestive endoscopy represented by ERCP, EUS, ESD, and EVL. It was the first in the province to perform a number of endoscopic diagnostic and treatment techniques, such as painless gastroscopy and colonoscopy, chromoendoscopy with magnification, confocal laser endomicroscopy, endoscopic ultrasonography, and single- and double-balloon enteroscopy; endoscopic mucosal resection, endoscopic submucosal dissection for early gastrointestinal cancer, peroral endoscopic myotomy, endoscopic excavation of gastrointestinal submucosal tumors, tissue adhesive, sclerosant injection, and ligation for esophageal and gastric fundal varices; various emergency endoscopic hemostatic treatments; EUS-guided biliary and pancreatic duct puncture and drainage, ganglion block, radiofrequency ablation of pancreatic cancer, internal drainage of pancreatic pseudocysts, and gastroenterostomy; various ERCP procedures for bile and pancreatic duct stone extraction and stent placement for benign and malignant strictures; dilation and stent placement for digestive tract strictures, percutaneous gastrostomy; holmium laser treatment of esophageal strictures, lithotripsy for gastric bezoars, and other procedures. Many of these projects have filled gaps at the hospital and in the province, greatly improving the level of digestive endoscopy diagnosis and treatment in our province. At the same time, as a fecal microbiota transplantation center in Central China, the center has carried out pioneering work in the field of intestinal microecological therapy. The gastrointestinal motility examination room is the unit of our department responsible for gastrointestinal motility testing and treatment. It has a high-resolution solid-state manometry 3D system and 24-hour combined pH-impedance monitoring, which can provide patients with comprehensive gastrointestinal motility diagnosis and treatment. Capsule endoscopy is painless, bringing good news to patients with small intestinal diseases. The liver transient elastography system Fibro touch can provide liver stiffness measurements consistent with those obtained by liver biopsy; it is completely noninvasive and provides quantitative measurements, making prognostic assessment more convenient and providing strong support for the early diagnosis of various liver diseases! As an important technical platform for the precision diagnosis and treatment of digestive tract diseases at our hospital, the PCR laboratory of the digestive specialty focuses on the molecular diagnosis of key pathogens, including detection of Helicobacter pylori drug-resistance genes, and provides end-to-end molecular testing solutions for clinical diagnosis and treatment. The laboratory covers an area of 105 square meters and is equipped with cutting-edge instruments, including a fully automated real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR system, a fully automated nucleic acid extraction workstation, and a gradient PCR instrument; it is also equipped with a biosafety cabinet, an ultra-clean work area, and an intelligent low-temperature storage system, forming a complete testing system from sample pretreatment to data analysis. At the same time, we have innovatively established an Hp disease-specific big data platform. The platform systematically integrates comprehensive data from outpatients and inpatients, including key dimensions such as strain genetic characteristics, drug susceptibility, individualized treatment plans, and long-term follow-up data, thereby forming a structured research database. The deep integration of the Hp big data platform and the molecular diagnostic laboratory not only achieves closed-loop “testing-treatment-research” management, but also provides strong data support and an experimental platform for research on the mechanisms of Helicobacter pylori drug resistance, optimization of precision medicine plans, and clinical translational research, marking the entry of our hospital into a new intelligent and systematic stage in the diagnosis, treatment, and research of digestive system diseases. As the core platform for basic medical research and clinical translational innovation in our department, the Institute of Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases focuses on mechanisms throughout the entire course of hepatitis-hepatic fibrosis-cirrhosis-liver cancer and on the research and development of diagnostic and treatment technologies for inflammatory bowel disease, constructing a three-in-one scientific research system integrating “disease mechanism exploration-molecular biomarker discovery-precision diagnosis and treatment technology development,” and has established friendly international scientific research collaborations with multiple laboratories in the United States, Germany, France, Japan, and other countries. In 2016, following review by the Hospital Academic Committee, it was officially approved as a key laboratory under development at Tongji Hospital, marking the institute’s entry into a new stage of high-quality development. In recent years, the institute’s scientific research strength has achieved leapfrog development, with more than 190 national-level research projects undertaken in total, including 1 Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 1 Excellent Young Scientists Fund project, 1 Regional Innovation and Development Joint Fund project, 1 Science Fund for Creative Research Groups project (as a participant), 1 special project under the Ministry of Science and Technology’s “13th Five-Year Plan” National Key Research and Development Program, 1 subproject of the National High-Tech Research and Development Program (863 Program), and other major scientific research projects; in addition, these include 97 National Natural Science Foundation of China projects. Its research achievements continue to lead the forefront of the discipline, with more than 800 papers published as first or corresponding author in internationally authoritative journals, including the Cell subjournal Cancer Cell (IF=38.6), the top gastroenterology journal Gastroenterology (IF=29.4), and Hepatology (IF=17.3). It has now established a technology system with independent intellectual property rights and has been granted 5 invention patents. The Department of Gastroenterology continues to explore and innovate in the field of medical artificial intelligence. It has reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and jointly developed a deep learning-based AI-assisted diagnostic system for digestive tract endoscopy (CoTNet). The system has innovatively established a multimodal endoscopic image analysis platform encompassing core functional modules such as dynamic tracking of upper gastrointestinal anatomical structures, intelligent assessment of intestinal cleanliness, and early lesion identification, and has now achieved key results. This achievement marks an important breakthrough by the department in the construction of an intelligent diagnosis and treatment system for digestive diseases, provides cutting-edge technical support for improving the quality-control level of endoscopic examinations and optimizing clinical decision-making pathways, and has significant scientific innovation value and potential for clinical translation. The Department of Gastroenterology of Tongji Hospital adheres to the development philosophy of “developing the department through academic excellence, strengthening the department through quality, and revitalizing the department through talent,” and has constructed an outstanding development system integrating “discipline development-clinical services-medical education.” In terms of medical talent development, in addition to undertaking clinical teaching for graduate students, undergraduate students, and international students every year, it also actively trains physicians undergoing standardized residency training and visiting physicians. As a regional hub for digestive medicine education, the department continues to build multilevel academic empowerment platforms and regularly holds nationwide and provincial academic seminars every year on digestive hepatology, endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasonography, ESD, ERCP, and related subjects, demonstrating the benchmark value of the construction of the digestive specialty education system and making a modest contribution to the continuing education of gastroenterologists throughout the province.